They started developing this rocket in the late 2010s, way before the current US craziness (or the current level of craziness anyway). Independent access to space is always desirable for countries that can muster the resources, but this is just one of many companies that appeared back then as a response to SpaceX's initial success.
Multiple European nations gaining their own independent launch capabilities will merely result in the sinking of ESA and ArianeSpace. Look forward to lots of infighting in the near future.
Yeah, I really hate this revisionism of Elon as an extremely wealthy apartheid emerald mine heir who was a dumb guy who happened to get lucky at paypal and then stole all his money from the government while operating a car and rocket company. There is plenty to criticize about him, but SpaceX dramatically decreased cost to orbit which had reliance on Russian technology at the time.
I think we are stronger together. European technology has been critical to many important American space missions, and that should continue to be the case.
An ecosystem where we develop things independently is one where everyone loses.
Yes, definitely, but being together by choice instead of by necessity is vastly preferable.
Especially given that recent history has shown us that we're back to "power" being the only language spoken.
__
Rel: The ecosystem thing.
I would challenge that, because if there's one thing where the US has had absurd leverage over the EU (and world, for that matter), then it's tech ecosystems.
A healthy ecosystem would not be owned by SV/US alone.
So right now, we're not really "strong together" but rather weakly dependent. That should be remediated, and decoupling like this is exactly the tool for that.
I dont think the EU is stronger when they get bullied and undermined by trump, or whichever american president decides to dust off trump's playbook in the future
I'd prefer to use this opportunity to talk about this as a success as well without this America decoupling nonsense doomer loop too.
Does anyone know if folks in Germany are posting about the huge ego and phallus shaped memes for this company doing something that SpaceX and Blue Origin were also doing? I'm guessing not, because the lens is "decoupling" and not "America bad" like so many felt inclined to report when our private companies were successfully launching rockets.
Anyway, congrats to the team at Isar. I like to celebrate these successes around the world as further space exploration, colonization, science, and economic development benefit us as a species and there is a lot of room for a lot of competitors.
only four countries in the world have private/commercial space launch capacity, and SpaceX towers over everyone else so I'd say this is doing pretty alright compared to the rest of the world
That's good. The way how the USA changed makes any "alliance" void. Just look at how today the USA tried to hand over land of Ukraine to Putin, with incompetents such as Kushner. Agent Krasnov is serving all but the US population here - and he regards the EU as an enemy in addition to that. So, no more support to that crazy country. Canadians learned that lesson, the EU still has to learn it.
> Just look at how today the USA tried to hand over land of Ukraine to Putin
Was it the land that Russia currently controls and Ukraine is very unlikely to retake? There's a spectrum between ideological behavior and pragmatic behavior. If Ukraine gives up this land and achieves peace, maybe it's worth it. I'm not suggesting it definitely is but at least the US is trying to negotiate or find some sort of solution, even if it's not going well.
In retrospect the US should have prepared for war and been willing to fight to uphold what was agreed to with Russia but that would have been a hard sell.
> So, no more support to that crazy country.
Nah Europe will still support it. Nothing will change there. But if you want things to change, we can completely withdraw from NATO, move bases back from Europe where we see fit, and un-sanction Russia while no longer providing support to Ukraine in any fashion and no longer sell weapons to Europe. That would be a disaster for Europe, which is why I tend to think comments like this are either ignorant, or pro-Russia/Iran/China with the intent to further inflame whatever tensions exist.
> Was it the land that Russia currently controls and Ukraine is very unlikely to retake? There's a spectrum between ideological behavior and pragmatic behavior. If Ukraine gives up this land and achieves peace, maybe it's worth it. I'm not suggesting it definitely is but at least the US is trying to negotiate or find some sort of solution, even if it's not going well.
It wasn't the US's decision to make, certainly not without having talked to Ukraine.
And right now, well, this war will continue until one of them runs out of money. The EU currently appears to consider Ukrainian sovereignty in this war to be in their own national interests, so they will keep funding it. Who will support the Russian economy in the same way?
> Nah Europe will still support it. Nothing will change there. But if you want things to change, we can completely withdraw from NATO, move bases back from Europe where we see fit, and un-sanction Russia while no longer providing support to Ukraine in any fashion and no longer sell weapons to Europe. That would be a disaster for Europe, which is why I tend to think comments like this are either ignorant, or pro-Russia/Iran/China with the intent to further inflame whatever tensions exist.
You, and many like you, really need to stop thinking Trump's behaviour is something that can be easily undone. You write to suggest dissenting voices are pro-China: Trump's actions have already forced many in the EU to consider the USA to be a bigger threat than China.
This isn't us liking China, we think poorly of their human rights record etc., it's just that the USA has fallen that far in our eyes.
Just to make it specific: Which city do you live in? I want you to imagine it getting actually, literally, nuked by French or British missiles in response to the USA doing what Trump keeps saying he'll do to Canada or Greenland.
Actual nukes.
I hope that will stay imagination.
Trump has a lot of levers he could pull that would be de facto acts of war besides annexing allies like he says he wants to. Ordering all the tech companies to stop providing services overnight, even that might do it given current dependencies.
> It wasn't the US's decision to make, certainly not without having talked to Ukraine.
Didn’t suggest it was, but at the end of the day it’s the US who is the partner at the table who can make the biggest difference and bringing Ukraine in to the room with Russia will just result in conflict and no hope of figuring things out diplomatically. Of course any deal that the US attempted to broker would have to be agreed to by Ukraine as well. Everyone understands this.
> , and many like you, really need to stop thinking Trump's behaviour is something that can be easily undone. His actions have already forced many in the EU to consider the USA to be a bigger threat than China.
Ok then we should do what I mentioned. It’s over. Is the EU ready to abandon Taiwan? Because if not, and let’s not ignore the G20 statement nor Germany hemorrhaging jobs and pretend the EU is cozying up to China. The US can just do the same and partner with China if it decided to.
> I hope that will stay imagination.
It won’t because it’s hyperbole that can be casually discarded.
> Trump has a lot of levers he could pull that would be de facto acts of war besides annexing allies like he says he wants to. Ordering all the tech companies to stop providing services overnight, even that might do it given current dependencies.
Nah he can’t do that. Tone down the imagination and sensationalizing
> Didn’t suggest it was, but at the end of the day it’s the US who is the partner at the table who can make the biggest difference and bringing Ukraine in to the room with Russia will just result in conflict and no hope of figuring things out diplomatically.
How? The US no longer supplies military aid to Ukraine. They're not a partner at all, let alone the one "who can make the biggest difference".
> Ok then we should do what I mentioned. It’s over. Is the EU ready to abandon Taiwan? Because if not, and let’s not ignore the G20 statement nor Germany hemorrhaging jobs and pretend the EU is cozying up to China. The US can just do the same and partner with China if it decided to.
That's not even a coherent argument.
> It won’t because it’s hyperbole that can be casually discarded.
If you don't take it seriously enough to prevent it, your city gets nuked.
> Nah he can’t do that.
Legally, or de-facto? Because legally he shouldn't be currently exchanging missiles with Iran. Legally the White House should be intact. Legally the Epstein files should've been release. Legally he's got 34 felony convictions for things he wasn't allowed to do. Legally he couldn't do the big tariffs he announced. Legally they had no right to go after Anthropic when the company refused to let their software get used for military stuff. Legally, his "I declassified them with my mind" claim was nonsense and he should've had a ten year sentence for that alone.
Not only do we not trust him, we don't trust you, and I mean personally you but also collectively you, to hold him back.
You, personally, are an avatar of the problem us Europeans see with America, because you don't seem to understand how seriously we take this.
Please, for the love of wherever you call home, take this seriously. You write as if this will all blow over and things will return to normal, but this can only happen if you recognise fault.
How can it be the first European rocket? There’s the ESA! Are you telling me we have all these organisations and none of them have ever launched from their own continent?
French Guiana is not a colony, it is a region of France. People who live there have the same constitutional rights as anyone living in mainland France.
It has the same status in France as Alaska does in the US.
Guianans tend to get pissed off if outsiders suggest in any way that they are any different as a French region from l'Hexagone (the French mainland). Your banging on about colonies would not be well received there.
In the political sense, «Western Europe» is typically taken to be «NATO Europe», and «Eastern Europe» is «Warsaw Pact Europe». Which is different from a strict geographic definition.
The sooner Europe cuts itself off from the US crazy billionaires, the better - on all levels (software and manufacture processes are the two biggest issues). Today we already could see the US surrender team crawling up to dictator Putin. Enough is enough - agent Krasnov needs to be isolated.
Americans have to hope that the US will move past trumo and not repeat that mistake, but for europeans its most prudent to prepare for a world where such a corrupt wannabe distator doesnt have have that much leverage over them.
The US and europe would be stronger together if the US acted in good faith. Absent that, decoupling is the right choice
This is a huge success, but it I think also tells us that the EU is further decoupling itself from the US. Slowly but steadily.
Which is obviously the right thing to do, but it's interesting that it's not just a hypothetical anymore.
They started developing this rocket in the late 2010s, way before the current US craziness (or the current level of craziness anyway). Independent access to space is always desirable for countries that can muster the resources, but this is just one of many companies that appeared back then as a response to SpaceX's initial success.
Eh, you can split us Europeans up into two camps; those who do not want to see the problem and those who couldn't look away.
The second camp saw the craziness when the later Bush was elected a second time.
Multiple European nations gaining their own independent launch capabilities will merely result in the sinking of ESA and ArianeSpace. Look forward to lots of infighting in the near future.
The EU already had quite a bit of non-EU spaceflight capability, both in terms of rockets and launch sites.
I think you meant non-US?
Although Ariane's rockets are wildly expensive and uncompetitive compared to SpaceX.
No, counterintuitively Ariane is non-EU. It launches from South America
French Guyana is part of the EU, actually, in spite of being in South America. (Colonialism!)
Last time I checked, France was part of the EU
Cost decreases with scale. Spacex was also wildly expensive, it grew up thanks to government assistance
This is an inaccurate simplification
> it grew up thanks to government assistance
Please give an example of gov assistance that was not a open contract to every private launch company in the US
Yeah, I really hate this revisionism of Elon as an extremely wealthy apartheid emerald mine heir who was a dumb guy who happened to get lucky at paypal and then stole all his money from the government while operating a car and rocket company. There is plenty to criticize about him, but SpaceX dramatically decreased cost to orbit which had reliance on Russian technology at the time.
No because of reduction of bureaucracy. ESA is the prime example of 1 engineer to 50 managers culture.
The french always had Ariane??
The Ariane is as much German as it is French. It is considerably Italian too.
I think we are stronger together. European technology has been critical to many important American space missions, and that should continue to be the case.
An ecosystem where we develop things independently is one where everyone loses.
Yes, definitely, but being together by choice instead of by necessity is vastly preferable.
Especially given that recent history has shown us that we're back to "power" being the only language spoken.
__
Rel: The ecosystem thing.
I would challenge that, because if there's one thing where the US has had absurd leverage over the EU (and world, for that matter), then it's tech ecosystems.
A healthy ecosystem would not be owned by SV/US alone.
So right now, we're not really "strong together" but rather weakly dependent. That should be remediated, and decoupling like this is exactly the tool for that.
I dont think the EU is stronger when they get bullied and undermined by trump, or whichever american president decides to dust off trump's playbook in the future
I think the stronger together argument implies good faith co-operation on both sides
The opinion of american billionaires is driving this.
> I think we are stronger together
That's pretty damn obvious to everyone with a half of brain, yet here we are being pulled apart.
It is indeed a huge success but it also underlines how far ahead the rest of the world is.
I'd honestly rather like to use this opportunity to talk about that this is a success than returning to our regularly scheduled doomer loop.
A rocket launched into orbit from Norway. That's insane progress and worth celebrating.
I'd prefer to use this opportunity to talk about this as a success as well without this America decoupling nonsense doomer loop too.
Does anyone know if folks in Germany are posting about the huge ego and phallus shaped memes for this company doing something that SpaceX and Blue Origin were also doing? I'm guessing not, because the lens is "decoupling" and not "America bad" like so many felt inclined to report when our private companies were successfully launching rockets.
Anyway, congrats to the team at Isar. I like to celebrate these successes around the world as further space exploration, colonization, science, and economic development benefit us as a species and there is a lot of room for a lot of competitors.
You know.. the things I get flagged for, and then you post stuff like this.
I'm not even sure what to make out of that dismissal opener other than that you've apparently didn't like whatever I wrote.
only four countries in the world have private/commercial space launch capacity, and SpaceX towers over everyone else so I'd say this is doing pretty alright compared to the rest of the world
That's good. The way how the USA changed makes any "alliance" void. Just look at how today the USA tried to hand over land of Ukraine to Putin, with incompetents such as Kushner. Agent Krasnov is serving all but the US population here - and he regards the EU as an enemy in addition to that. So, no more support to that crazy country. Canadians learned that lesson, the EU still has to learn it.
> Just look at how today the USA tried to hand over land of Ukraine to Putin
Was it the land that Russia currently controls and Ukraine is very unlikely to retake? There's a spectrum between ideological behavior and pragmatic behavior. If Ukraine gives up this land and achieves peace, maybe it's worth it. I'm not suggesting it definitely is but at least the US is trying to negotiate or find some sort of solution, even if it's not going well.
In retrospect the US should have prepared for war and been willing to fight to uphold what was agreed to with Russia but that would have been a hard sell.
> So, no more support to that crazy country.
Nah Europe will still support it. Nothing will change there. But if you want things to change, we can completely withdraw from NATO, move bases back from Europe where we see fit, and un-sanction Russia while no longer providing support to Ukraine in any fashion and no longer sell weapons to Europe. That would be a disaster for Europe, which is why I tend to think comments like this are either ignorant, or pro-Russia/Iran/China with the intent to further inflame whatever tensions exist.
> Was it the land that Russia currently controls and Ukraine is very unlikely to retake? There's a spectrum between ideological behavior and pragmatic behavior. If Ukraine gives up this land and achieves peace, maybe it's worth it. I'm not suggesting it definitely is but at least the US is trying to negotiate or find some sort of solution, even if it's not going well.
It wasn't the US's decision to make, certainly not without having talked to Ukraine.
And right now, well, this war will continue until one of them runs out of money. The EU currently appears to consider Ukrainian sovereignty in this war to be in their own national interests, so they will keep funding it. Who will support the Russian economy in the same way?
> Nah Europe will still support it. Nothing will change there. But if you want things to change, we can completely withdraw from NATO, move bases back from Europe where we see fit, and un-sanction Russia while no longer providing support to Ukraine in any fashion and no longer sell weapons to Europe. That would be a disaster for Europe, which is why I tend to think comments like this are either ignorant, or pro-Russia/Iran/China with the intent to further inflame whatever tensions exist.
You, and many like you, really need to stop thinking Trump's behaviour is something that can be easily undone. You write to suggest dissenting voices are pro-China: Trump's actions have already forced many in the EU to consider the USA to be a bigger threat than China.
This isn't us liking China, we think poorly of their human rights record etc., it's just that the USA has fallen that far in our eyes.
Just to make it specific: Which city do you live in? I want you to imagine it getting actually, literally, nuked by French or British missiles in response to the USA doing what Trump keeps saying he'll do to Canada or Greenland.
Actual nukes.
I hope that will stay imagination.
Trump has a lot of levers he could pull that would be de facto acts of war besides annexing allies like he says he wants to. Ordering all the tech companies to stop providing services overnight, even that might do it given current dependencies.
> It wasn't the US's decision to make, certainly not without having talked to Ukraine.
Didn’t suggest it was, but at the end of the day it’s the US who is the partner at the table who can make the biggest difference and bringing Ukraine in to the room with Russia will just result in conflict and no hope of figuring things out diplomatically. Of course any deal that the US attempted to broker would have to be agreed to by Ukraine as well. Everyone understands this.
> , and many like you, really need to stop thinking Trump's behaviour is something that can be easily undone. His actions have already forced many in the EU to consider the USA to be a bigger threat than China.
Ok then we should do what I mentioned. It’s over. Is the EU ready to abandon Taiwan? Because if not, and let’s not ignore the G20 statement nor Germany hemorrhaging jobs and pretend the EU is cozying up to China. The US can just do the same and partner with China if it decided to.
> I hope that will stay imagination.
It won’t because it’s hyperbole that can be casually discarded.
> Trump has a lot of levers he could pull that would be de facto acts of war besides annexing allies like he says he wants to. Ordering all the tech companies to stop providing services overnight, even that might do it given current dependencies.
Nah he can’t do that. Tone down the imagination and sensationalizing
> Didn’t suggest it was, but at the end of the day it’s the US who is the partner at the table who can make the biggest difference and bringing Ukraine in to the room with Russia will just result in conflict and no hope of figuring things out diplomatically.
How? The US no longer supplies military aid to Ukraine. They're not a partner at all, let alone the one "who can make the biggest difference".
> Ok then we should do what I mentioned. It’s over. Is the EU ready to abandon Taiwan? Because if not, and let’s not ignore the G20 statement nor Germany hemorrhaging jobs and pretend the EU is cozying up to China. The US can just do the same and partner with China if it decided to.
That's not even a coherent argument.
> It won’t because it’s hyperbole that can be casually discarded.
If you don't take it seriously enough to prevent it, your city gets nuked.
> Nah he can’t do that.
Legally, or de-facto? Because legally he shouldn't be currently exchanging missiles with Iran. Legally the White House should be intact. Legally the Epstein files should've been release. Legally he's got 34 felony convictions for things he wasn't allowed to do. Legally he couldn't do the big tariffs he announced. Legally they had no right to go after Anthropic when the company refused to let their software get used for military stuff. Legally, his "I declassified them with my mind" claim was nonsense and he should've had a ten year sentence for that alone.
Not only do we not trust him, we don't trust you, and I mean personally you but also collectively you, to hold him back.
You, personally, are an avatar of the problem us Europeans see with America, because you don't seem to understand how seriously we take this.
Please, for the love of wherever you call home, take this seriously. You write as if this will all blow over and things will return to normal, but this can only happen if you recognise fault.
Russia's word has been ironclad each time it's been given to Ukraine previously. It surely would be the same this time.
So you don’t think the two sides should even try to find a diplomatic solution?
Plesetsk is also european soil.
They're using "Europe" as political shorthand for Western Europe
Kourou as well, although maybe a different definition of European.
Would maybe call it European territory but not soil. But yeah, as you say it's how you define it.
Isar Aerospace launch into orbit [video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss1DUqLjecc (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49580325)
Thanks for that video. Super cool that they got pro streamers NSF involved.
This is such a breath of fresh air
o/
Made with imipolex g?
How can it be the first European rocket? There’s the ESA! Are you telling me we have all these organisations and none of them have ever launched from their own continent?
Europe isn't on or remotely near the equator, which is somewhat favorable for launches.
> The German company Isar Aerospace launched its Spectrum rocket from Andøya Space Center in northern Norway today
To speculate, they could be targeting a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit
ESA launches French Guiana. Since it is cheaper to launch closer to the equator with the extra speed provided by the earth's rotation.
For satellites that should be in Sun-synchronous orbit Andøy is a great place to launch from
Really comes in handy to still have a couple of colonies near the equator.
It's also better to have the massive amounts of emissions far away from your own population.
French Guiana is not a colony, it is a region of France. People who live there have the same constitutional rights as anyone living in mainland France.
It has the same status in France as Alaska does in the US.
It's a colony even if it's legally part of France.
(Had to check: free movement does apply to Guianans, but in the other direction it's not part of Schengen)
Guianans tend to get pissed off if outsiders suggest in any way that they are any different as a French region from l'Hexagone (the French mainland). Your banging on about colonies would not be well received there.
>Really comes in handy to still have a couple of colonies near the equator.
>It's also better to have the massive amounts of emissions far away from your own population.
That's the dumbest comment i read since a long time, thanks.
> How can it be the first European rocket?
Not at all. You've missed the "Private" in the headline. And that it apparently is.
Article says Western Europe, but Norway is in Northern Europe.
“First rocket to launch from Europe outside Russia” would have been perfectly correct.
In the political sense, «Western Europe» is typically taken to be «NATO Europe», and «Eastern Europe» is «Warsaw Pact Europe». Which is different from a strict geographic definition.
They launch from Guiana afaik
French Guiana to be exact, which is a different country
Edit: Misread
They meant French Guiana is a different country to Guyana... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guianas
The French used to launch their rockets from Algeria. Their first satellite was launched from there. Since then they moved to (French) Guiana.
The UK launched from Australia.
Fantastic job!
o/
The sooner Europe cuts itself off from the US crazy billionaires, the better - on all levels (software and manufacture processes are the two biggest issues). Today we already could see the US surrender team crawling up to dictator Putin. Enough is enough - agent Krasnov needs to be isolated.
I don’t think America is so far gone. We have issues sure, but I for one still believe that we can be better.
Trump be damned, Europe and America are stronger when they work together.
Americans have to hope that the US will move past trumo and not repeat that mistake, but for europeans its most prudent to prepare for a world where such a corrupt wannabe distator doesnt have have that much leverage over them.
The US and europe would be stronger together if the US acted in good faith. Absent that, decoupling is the right choice
The Germans will now distance themselves from ArianeSpace and go their own way. Let the infighting begin!!